Chapter 7
The auctioneer’s metallic, rhythmic voice echoed through the powerful speakers scattered across the main house lawn, mingling with the smell of grilled meat, imported perfume, and dried manure.
Fazenda Falc?o had transformed into a showcase of pure ostentation.
Giant white tents sheltered the state’s agricultural elite—ranchers with gold belt buckles and women dripping in diamonds that contrasted grotesquely with the Pantanal dust. I leaned against the wooden fence of the handling corridor, far from the VIP tables, wearing my clean canvas shirt and regional council badge.
Beneath my collar, the cold metal of the small falcon pendant rested against my chest.
Weeks had passed since Bento placed that silver chain around my neck in the darkness of the cabin, before dawn stole our peace.
In that time, I’d confirmed that the number of animals scattered across the outposts didn’t match the numbers declared in the ranch’s spreadsheets.
Dozens of Animal Transit Guides repeated the same numbering, invoices from the front slaughterhouse recorded slaughters of cattle that were still being moved clandestinely, and vaccine purchases showed as paid even though the stocks hadn’t received a single dose.
I photographed brands, cross-referenced identification tags, gathered samples, and turned each discrepancy into reports that would support the dossier bound for the Federal Police.
Bento had kept up a rigid, distant front around the employees, speaking to me only when absolutely necessary about the audit.
Still, the promises he’d whispered against my skin kept my blood humming in a stupid, hopeful way.
When no one was around, his eyes sought mine, and I clung to those moments as proof that the coldness was just the mask he needed to throw Jurandir off until the reports were delivered.
I believed we were finally on the same side.
“Attention, investors and friends of the Falc?o family!” Jurandir’s voice thundered through the microphone, interrupting the flow of bids on the elite bulls.
The patriarch stood at the center of the stage erected before the exhibition corral, radiating the power of a true dictator.
“Today, we’re not just hammering down for the best genetics in the Pantanal.
We’re sealing the future of our empire.”
An expectant silence fell over the crowd beneath the tents. My stomach sank, a sharp, primitive intuition warning me that the calm had ended.
“I call to the stage my son, Jo?o Bento Falc?o, and the jewel of the Peixoto family, Isadora!” Jurandir announced, raising his whiskey glass.
The crowd erupted in applause.
The air vanished from my lungs when I saw Jo?o Bento climb the wooden steps.
He was impeccable—blond hair slicked back, black button-down shirt hugging his broad shoulders, and an expression so utterly cold and inscrutable it seemed carved from marble.
Isadora Peixoto climbed up right after him, draped in pure silk, and threaded her arm through his with a victorious smile.
Bento didn’t push her away. He didn’t even hesitate.
My heart pounded in my throat. I took two steps forward, leaving the shadow of the fence, stopping right in the stage’s line of sight.
Bento took the microphone from his father’s hands. His brown eyes swept the crowd and, as if guided by some magnetic radar, locked onto mine. The storm and heat of that dawn five weeks earlier were gone. What stared down at me from that stage was the empty abyss of a man I didn’t recognize at all.
“Fazenda Falc?o has always been built on pillars of tradition and purebred lineage.” Bento’s voice echoed through the speakers—deep, cutting, devoid of any emotion.
He placed his hand on Isadora’s waist, pulling her closer.
“It is with pride that I officially announce the merger of our lands with those of the Peixoto family, sealed by my engagement to Isadora. Our legacy leaves no room for weakness.”
The applause resumed, but Bento raised his hand, calling for silence. His gaze never left mine. The lethal, cruel gleam that spread across his face made my legs buckle for a split second.
“And since our family values transparency,” Bento continued, each syllable a nail hammered straight into my soul, “I want to make clear to everyone here that any recent rumors involving my name and the veterinary council auditor are nothing but trash.”
A murmur swept through the tables. Dozens of faces turned toward me simultaneously. I felt my face burn, but the shame was immediately swallowed by excruciating shock.
“Men in my position sometimes get distracted by easy diversions along the way,” Bento declared into the microphone, destroying everything we were without so much as blinking.
“What happened between us was nothing more than a cheap fling. A pathetic mistake by someone who needed to chase away boredom. Doctor Rosário Duarte is just an employee who forgot her place, and who, from this exact moment, is strictly forbidden from setting foot on Falc?o family land.”
The sound of the microphone being returned to the stand echoed like a gunshot.
Time stopped. The air in the Pantanal turned solid, suffocating.
The pain that tore through my chest was violent and physical.
For a second, I thought my heart had literally burst. Bento had humiliated me, used our night of absolute surrender and dragged my name through the mud in front of the entire state’s elite, reducing me to a disposable distraction.
The ten-year-old girl I used to be would have collapsed. The cook’s daughter would have cried, covered her face, and fled into the darkness of the dirt road, destroyed by the humiliation of not being enough.
But I was no longer that girl. The lioness forged in rejection and my father’s absence roared to life inside me, burning away the pain and transforming it into pure, absolute hatred.
I didn’t shed a single tear. My spine straightened like a steel rod. The murmur of the people around me faded to meaningless white noise.
I walked toward the stage. My steps were measured, firm, my eyes locked on Jo?o Bento’s.
With every step I took, I saw the icy mask on Bento’s face waver.
His breathing seemed to catch, and the hand on Isadora’s waist dropped to his side.
The patriarch Jurandir crossed his arms, watching me with a victorious, disgusting smile, but I didn’t give a damn about him.
I stopped right at the foot of the wooden stage steps.
Bento swallowed hard, the vein in his neck pulsing wildly. He looked like a man walking to the gallows, but I had no mercy to give.
I reached for the collar of my shirt, grabbed the silver chain, and snapped the links with one hard yank. The falcon pendant sliced into my skin, leaving a red mark, but the physical pain meant nothing.
I hurled the chain at him. The metal struck Jo?o Bento's black shirt and clattered to the wooden stage floor, landing right at the toe of his boot.
“Keep your empire of mud, Jo?o Bento.” My voice didn’t tremble.
It came out clean, lethal, pitched just loud enough for only him, Isadora, and Jurandir to hear the verdict.
“You proved today that you’re not your father’s victim.
You’re exactly the monster he molded you to be.
The most pathetic mistake of my life was believing that underneath that heir’s armor, there was a real man. ”
His brown eyes shone with a desperation the crowd couldn’t see. He opened his mouth, fingers trembling at his sides, but the coward didn’t utter a single word.
I didn’t wait for an answer. His farce didn’t deserve another breath of mine.
I turned my back on the stage, on the applauding elite, and on the family that had taken everything from me twice.
I walked through the aisle of guests with my chin raised and my gaze impenetrable.
I didn’t bow my head, didn’t let a single tear stain my face.
The dust of Fazenda Falc?o stayed behind, along with the last drop of love I’d been foolish enough to nurture for the chained heir.